haha...if you take it to a body shop they should be able to fix it right up...there either gonna slightly bend it or loose the hood and adjust it just a scoch. haha

 

Is the hood latching down tight to the second catch? Does it pop up more when you pull the release? When you try pressing down, even though it may not latch, does it get pretty close to where it needs to be? Trying to figure out if there's an obstruction (like the adjustable rubber stoppers are too high) or the latch is just too high.

The latch is held on the metal frame that runs across the front of the engine bay, and also by the vertical bracket the mounts beneath the radiator. If anything would need to be bent by a body shop, it might be one of these pieces. Not the hood.

 

the latch is down. when the hood is down i can lift it with my finger and it rattle a little. good advice about the metal frame i would rather bend that then the hood

 

The hood lock is usually adjuastable. See if you can loosen the bolts and slide it about 1/4 incl down. If they are all the way down, take the lock odd and with a round file grind the holes up, to make the lock able to slide down some more.

 

I got my car at the dealer now with this same problem. When I push down on the middle of the hood it all lines up perfectly. If they cant fix it I will take it to a body shop. I cant have it look like this.



I'll let you know how it goes.

 

so there is an adjustment procedure after all...

instructions:

http://rapidshare.com/files/215758420/hood.pdf

 

**** yeah!! I knew there was a adjustment.

Dunno thank you much

 

Well my car is in the body shop right now for the hood. They said it was in a minor accident and when they put everything back on they put it on to low. This is why the hood is not meeting up. They do not think by just moving the latch strike down will correct the problem. We will see.

 

is it not interesting that they would fix a bumper, paint the thing and let you pick it up looking that way in the first place, do people have no pride in their work that they dont adjust the strike to line up a hood that is so obviously f'ed up in its alignment?

 

That looks suspicious

 

I got the car back a couple days ago and the hood looks great. Im so relieved and they did it for free. Anyway Im sorry but I dont have any info on how they did it. The Lexus service guy took it to the body shop for me and he didn't talk to them he just picked it up. Great service!!